Bridget Leigh Kimbrell, 41, of Hillsboro has been charged with two felonies for allegedly stealing a Missouri State Highway Patrol cruiser and striking a trooper near De Soto, authorities reported.
The incident happened Feb. 26, and the next day, the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged Kimbrell with first-degree assault, a class A felony punishable by 10 to 30 years or life in prison, and first-degree tampering with a motor vehicle, a class D felony that carries a penalty up to seven years in prison.
She was arrested on March 4 in Conway, Ark., and then extradited to Jefferson County. She was being held Tuesday in the Jefferson County Jail without bail, Highway Patrol Cpl. Dallas Thompson said.
The patrol vehicle was stolen Feb. 26 after a trooper found the woman on Center Drive near De Soto following an accident involving a vehicle that was suspected of being stolen.
The trooper had handcuffed the woman and put her in the front passenger seat of his cruiser, but she slipped out of the handcuffs, got into the cruiser’s driver’s seat and drove away, striking the trooper with the vehicle in the process, Thompson said.
He said the trooper suffered minor injuries to one of his legs, but he had been cleared to resume light duty with the patrol.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office deputies pursued the stolen cruiser, which the woman crashed off Hardin Road near the St. Francois County line, but the woman ran away and escaped arrest, Thompson said.
He said the cruiser was totaled.